EAGER: Coded Caching for Heterogeneous and Energy Harvesting Systems

Demand for content with high data rate requirements has reached unprecedented levels. Services like video on-demand, once thought impossible to deliver through resource constrained wireless channels, will become the norm rather than the exception in the near future. Next generation designs thus need to utilize new resources to satisfy user demands. Coded caching is a promising paradigm in this direction in that it offers local data storage as a means to alleviate network congestion. This project aims to make significant progress in bridging the gap between theory and practice of coded caching by addressing the heterogeneity in the data storage capacities of the nodes. This project also puts forward a new content delivery network architecture envisioned to include energy harvesting nodes whose heterogeneous energy availability needs to be explicitly taken into account in designing caching strategies.

The project involves optimizing caching placement and delivery strategies for networks with heterogeneous cache sizes. Building on these strategies, the project will also pursue the research direction where energy sustainability is improved by capitalizing caching in energy harvesting communication networks. The research will utilize information theory, communication theory and optimization as tools and is envisioned to be of fundamental nature. The broader impact of the project includes informing the design of next generation content delivery networks, as well as contributing to the vision of new network architectures with energy harvesting nodes introduced to content delivery networks. The educational broader impact includes dissemination through invited lectures, tutorials, and publications, as well as integration of research results into the graduate curriculum.